Would you rather have a 2.5 Four or Five Cylinder?

Both of these engines have the same exact displacement, so, which runs cooler and more efficiently? It's a trade off between Four larger cylinders or Five smaller cylinders. And, please comment on the issue of torque. I understand that VW is discontinuing the five cylinder engine, why? http://m.caranddriver.com/features/the-future-dims-for-the-five-cylinder-engine-feature

4 Answers

A five cylinder would not work in a Subaru as they are inline
engines. Honda had a racing 5 that was a V engine though! Odd
number of cylinder engines are rough and require balancing shafts
to try and smooth out the inherent vibrations. Inline 6 and V12
engines are naturally balanced. Torque is largely a matter of the
stroke length of the engine, not the number of cylinders.

My original question was aimed at comparing the torque similarly
sized engines with different numbers of cylinders. Thanks for your
answer above, so, it's the length of the stroke per cylinder and not
the number of cylinders? Also, what do you know about engines
that are more square, as in larger bore vs longer strokes?.

Your Answer

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